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John Jefferson Bray: a Vigilant Life, by John Emerson

John Bray (1912-1995) was an Adelaide lawyer, classical scholar, and poet. From 1967-1978 he served as Chief Justice of the South Australian Supreme Court. He was born into the ‘Adelaide Establishment’, a loose grouping of families of wealth and influence in the small and intensely provincial city of Adelaide. His grandfather had been the first native born Premier of the colony, he attended Adelaide’s main private boys’ school, took a law degree at Adelaide University and moved into a law practice in the city, and thence to the Supreme Court. A commendable life no doubt, but what is there about it that makes John Bray worthy of a full biography (2015)?

This is the question asked by former High Court Judge Michael Kirby in his foreword to the book. He suggests that Bray was not only a first class jurist, but also that he ‘challenged elements of his society’ by his life and his values – and that he suffered from a conservative backlash because of it. ‘This, then, is the ultimate fascination of the dichotomy at the heart of the life of John Jefferson Bray,’ he writes. Does the book live up to this promise?

Bray’s literary interests and the friendships he made because of them were unusual enough in the Adelaide of the 1930s. Though not a modernist in cultural matters, or a political radical, he had friends who were. He questioned the prudish censorship of the day and the enforcement of morals by the courts. And he didn’t ever wear a hat! Furthermore, he was a lifelong bachelor, which led to endless speculation about his sexuality. Kirby argues that Bray had a perfect right to privacy in this area, and Emerson leave a full discussion of it until a final chapter. But it was the issue of his sexuality that involved Bray in major challenges in SA.

Before that, however, Bray had made enemies in high places for other reasons. One major occasion for this was his successful defence in 1960 of Rohan Rivett, editor of Adelaide’s then evening paper, the News, against charges of seditious libel. These arose from Rivett’s commitment to see justice done in the case of Rupert Max Stuart, who was facing the death penalty after being found guilty of murder on less than fully convincing grounds. Rivett and the News were accused of libelling the Chief Justice, who was acting as a Royal Commissioner in an inquiry into the case. Emerson suggests that the personal involvement of the Liberal Premier Sir Thomas Playford in this case helped bring about the defeat of his government after twenty-three years in office.

Bray was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by the Labor Premier Don Dunstan. He was not the candidate favoured by the higher reaches of the legal profession. Bray warned Dunstan that his ‘Bohemian and unconventional temperament and manner of life’ made him ‘a dubious choice for the post.’ Dunstan persisted, but was in fact advised not to appoint him on grounds of his lifestyle – read suspected homosexuality. From this advice it became clear that SA police were keeping secret files on Bray – and many others – without legal basis. This issue simmered for a time, but finally in 1978 blew up into a full-blown political crisis which resulted in a Royal Commission into the existence of the files and the sacking of the then Police Commissioner by the Dunstan government on the grounds that he had misled them – resulting in a further Royal Commission into the dismissal. Despite the fact that the Royal Commission found the dismissal to be constitutionally correct, Bray resigned as Chief Justice. Dunstan retired the following year, both, Emerson claims, victims of the deep prejudice in sections of South Australian society against homosexuality.

Aside from these two major episodes, Emerson covers other legal matters Bray was involved in, and comments on his poetry and classical research and writing. Bray was clearly concerned about human rights and personal freedoms, though of course he used his legal skills to defend the guilty as well as the innocent. From Emerson’s account, it seems to me that his poetry and classical writing, while unusual in someone of his background, were interesting rather than brilliant. Emerson also discusses Bray’s friendships with a range of stimulating people, showing he was able to function in a range of social and intellectual environments much wider than the usual, and certainly quite different from the norm in Adelaide at the time. He seems to have been a generous friend, attracting strong loyalties – as well as the enmity of the Establishment. I have to admit to a personal interest here; Bray was unfailingly supportive of a member of my family, one of his legal colleagues who had fallen on hard times.

I read the book with interest because it is about interesting events in Adelaide where I live. But I’m not convinced that it would hold great interest for anyone who didn’t have a special concern for the subject, either as a piece of South Australian history, or as judicial history. Is this because the life itself doesn’t after all command wider attention? Or because Emerson’s book doesn’t do it justice? A bit of both, I think.

You can read more about the Stuart case here. And more about the dismissal of the Police Commissioner here.